After turning bulls out July 26, North Dakota rancher Jesse Kalberer begins calving in late April-May. You might think he would wean those spring calves in October when he pregnancy-tests the cows; however, the multigenerational rancher turns the calves back with their mothers until Christmas.

“Last year we ultrasounded on the 30th of October and weaned the calves the 22nd of December,” he says, noting the calves do better with an extra two months with their mothers. The calves are able to handle the stress of weaning much better at that older age.

“The only reason we’ve been weaning that early is because we have some bull calves in the group,” he says. “This year I plan to wean the bull and steer calves right before Christmas and turn the heifers back out with their mothers for another month or two and wean them in February.”

If heifers can stay with their mothers longer, they become better cows, he reasons.

Preparing for winter

Most years the ranch has good winter pasture. During the summer, Kalberer won’t graze pastures to be used for wintering pairs, reserving the forage for fall and winter.

“Keeping pairs together that long saves on feed for the weaned calves, with less labor to feed them,” Kalberer says. “This makes a huge difference.”

Kalberer’s goal for the past four years has been to graze all the way through winter.

“Last year was the first year we actually accomplished it,” Kalberer says.

Currently the ranch has 100 cow-calf pairs, plus a lot of heifers as they plan to expand.

“I don’t want our base herd to get much bigger than about 200 to 250, or we’d have to feed a lot of hay,” Kalberer says. “We try to keep the base herd small and not have to feed hay, and it’s really small right now because prices have been so high that we weren’t retaining heifers. We fill our summer pastures with stockers.”

Wintering pairs together is a great program for people who calve in late spring, he says.